Julien Nicolas Profile picture
Oct 4 14 tweets 11 min read
Excited to share our work on subcutaneous administration of hydrophobic, vesicant anticancer drugs via water-soluble polymer prodrugs out in @J_A_C_S Wonderful team effort! @ERC_Research @UnivParisSaclay @CNRS @INC_CNRS @CNRSIdFSud @Pharma_UPSaclay doi.org/10.1021/jacs.2…
🧵1/n
👉 Chemotherapy is almost exclusively administered intravenously (IV) which has serious limitations:
➡️Patient discomfort (central route🩸, catheter failure…)
➡️Frequent hospital stays🏥, trained staff🩺👨‍⚕️needed…
➡️Costly (and cost will 📈 as new cancer cases will 📈)
🧵2/n
What about other administration routes?
➡️Oral route 💊: very restrictive. Low and variable bioavailability. Chemo requires precise dosing.
➡️Subcutaneous (SC) route 💉: not possible for vesicant/irritant drugs because of skin ulceration 🚨 and even necrosis ☠️
🧵3/n
SC administration has many benefits vs. IV:
✅More comfortable for the patient (less invasive, easy to perform) 💉
✅No hospital stay
✅Less costly
✅Towards home chemotherapy and self-administration?
🧵4/n
What about #nanomedicine #nanoparticles #liposomes for SC delivery?
➡️No example applied to vesisant/irritant drugs, and there are many of them (taxanes, vinca alkaloids, Dox, Gem, Pt-based...)
📋Only 9 (!) anticancer drugs are approved for SC delivery, all non-irritant
🧵5/n
💡SC administration of water-soluble polymer prodrugs (= drug-polymer conjugation)
Our system:
▪️ Drug: Paclitaxel (Ptx). Hydrophobic, vesicant anticancer drug➡️Taxol
▪️ Polymer: Polyacrylamide (PAAm). Super hydrophilic polymer, biocompatible (wrinkle filler⤵️), stealth
🧵6/n
Ptx-PAAm prodrugs were synthesized by the drug-initiated method:
✅Few steps, high yields
✅Easy work up (unreacted AAm to be removed only)
✅Adjusting the PAAm chain length➡️water-solubility
✅Changing the nature of the Ptx-PAAm linker➡️tuning Ptx release
✅Scalable
🧵7/n
We synthesized well-defined Ptx-PAAm prodrugs by RAFT polymerization:
▪️ Mn ~20 kDa to achieve water-solubility
▪️ 3 different linkers tested (carbonate, ester, diglycolate) to tune Ptx release kinetics
🧵8/n
We then did a preclinical development of the prodrugs (injectab, Ptx release, MTT, systemic & local tox, PK, biodis📊, anticancer efficacy📈)

In🐭vs Taxol:
✅No local tox (histo), much higher MTD
✅Cmax / 15-114
✅Ptx-ester-PAAm: stealth (t1/2 = 14 h) & 84% bioavailab.
🧵9/n
What about anticancer efficacy❓
Taxol IV vs Ptx-PAAm SC:

✅Same Ptx dose => same efficacy
➡️Successful switch from Taxol IV to Ptx SC under the form of polymer prodrugs🥳

✅x3 Ptx dose (cf MTD) => higher efficacy
➡️Ptx-based polymer prodrugs SC outperfom Taxol IV 🥳
🧵10/n
So what’s next⁉️
Startup company @Imescia_ created w/ @NTsapis, @AlexBordat & @tanguyboissenot
2 goals:
1⃣Indus. collab. w/ pharma companies to deliver their own (poorly soluble) drugs via our approach
2⃣Raise funds (2.5 M€ needed🙏) to start a clinical trial in humans in 2024
Last but not least, many people to thank in this exciting (ongoing) journey:
▪️ co-authors🙏 incl. @NTsapis @AlexBordat @tanguyboissenot @EbrahimNada09 @PietersGregory1
▪️ @cnrs @cnrsinnovation @Brahim_Sennane @julesmeunier @SATTSaclay @ParisBiotech @Pharma_UPSaclay
🧵12/n
Please unroll @threadreaderapp

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Julien Nicolas

Julien Nicolas Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @julnicolas

May 24
🧵 Based on an analogy with AAm/Sty copolymers that exhibit #UCST properties we managed to replace Sty by aromatic ring-containing CKAs (MPDL & BMDO) to obtain degradable, UCST copolymers
✅Synthesis by #RAFT
✅UCST (w/ MDO = no UCST)
✅Degradation in accelerated conditions
1/9
The UCST can be finely tuned by simply varying the amount of CKA in the copolymer. With BMDO, Tcp = 22-55°C, thus covering r.t. and the body temperature, and opening the door to biomedical applications 💊 #hyperthermia 2/9
🔴 We also found that these copolymers can be rapidly degraded under "physiological" conditions (PBS, pH 7.4, 37°C) and even in water, below or above their UCST.

How fast❓ Faster than #PLA and even #PLGA!
▶️Up to -70% decrease in Mn after 7 days! 3/9
Read 10 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(